


I Can be Afraid of Anything

by highnyoom



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Emotional Hurt, Food, Friendship, M/M, everyone may be in this later, um
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-15 22:10:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12329865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/highnyoom/pseuds/highnyoom
Summary: Old and new agents are slowly trickling back to Overwatch after Winston made the recall. A lot of emotions are going around, loss of sleep, loss of appetite, but there's an underlying sense of family in the midst of it, and nobody can deny how refreshing it is to be a part of something again. All anyone can hope for is that it won't be a repeat of the last time.





	I Can be Afraid of Anything

Tears flowed freely. He didn’t think he could stop them if he wanted to. There were days like this, now that he had the time to stop and breathe. Though, funnily enough breathing was the opposite of what he was doing as he gulped huge lungfuls of air in an attempt to calm himself. It was something he was beginning to adapt to now. At this point he was a master of disassociation and viewed these episodes almost in third person. Almost. It didn’t stop the irrational rage coursing through him. 

 

He grabbed a nearby beer bottle from his dresser, and, gripping it tightly, hand shaking, chucked it at his wall, hard, leaving a sizable dent in the drywall when it shattered, littering the corner with glass.  _ I’ll pay for that later, _ he thought to himself.  _ Calm down, calm down, calm down _ . He tried reasoning with himself. None of this was rational, it came out of nowhere, sort of. A warm numbness washed over his body and he clenched his fists, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to stop his mind from reeling. He stepped back until his knees hit the edge of a stool, throwing himself onto it with a ragged, heaving breath. He fisted his hair with his head in his hands, choking out a strangled cry. Around that moment, he heard a knock at his door, jolting him out of his spiraling mind. 

 

“Uh, one sec!” He rasped as he scrambled to hide the broken glass and straighten the room. There wasn’t much he could do about the hole in the wall, but hopefully it wasn’t too noticeable. Once he figured it was presentable, which took all of about 15 seconds and was truly half-assed, he opened the door to face a concerned looking Lena Oxton. He brushed his hair out of his face with one hand, flashing a weak smile. After all these years she was a sight to behold, even with her brow furrowed and her lips pursed. 

 

“Jesse,” she sighed. He scowled. Not what he wanted to deal with right now. He braced himself for the inevitable questioning or reprimanding, but it didn’t come. Instead, she held out a hand and nodded toward the hallway. He wearily raised an eyebrow. “Come eat dinner with the team. You need to re-acclimate, yeah?” 

 

McCree blinked, feeling his eyes prickling at the corners from the gentleness in her tone. “Y-yeah, I could use a pick me up.” He nodded gratefully, taking her hand as she led him through the halls. He couldn’t bring himself to look around, he hadn’t been able to absorb being back yet, not since what happened at Swiss HQ. Despite how much time had passed, old wounds were opening back up. He was honestly embarrassed that he was having mental breakdowns over things he thought he had gotten over years ago. He knew he would be okay, but holing himself up in old Blackwatch quarters and drinking for the better part of the week was probably not the most conducive way to cope with answering the recall. 

 

Lena gave his hand one last comforting squeeze when they got to the mess hall, before going into the kitchen to chat with Reinhardt, leaving McCree to his own devices. He decided the coffee maker toward the back wall was his saving grace right now. He looked around the messy room, taking in his surroundings. The ensemble was clearly impromptu. Benches were shoved in haphazardly, a couple of tables were up against the walls with microwaves, a toaster oven, and a portable grill. The coffee maker was on top of a mini fridge that was only stocked with creamer, and a tiny cabinet sat by the door, filled with random snacks that would easily fit the “munchies” category. He chuckled to himself.  _ My kind of mess _ , he thought. 

 

There were new faces in the room. He didn’t know if they were agents or employees at the watchpoint. Genji sat at one table with his head low, speaking to an omnic he didn’t recognize. At the other end of the same table sat a man with an intricate tattoo. McCree didn’t know what to presume of him staring at Genji, however, so he skipped over that table. Old Jack Morrison was alone at another bench, sipping coffee and fully engrossed in something he was reading on his phone, so McCree decided that table was his best bet. He sat down, suddenly feeling the crippling hangover that he gets from a bad mental health episode. Luckily, it was one that coffee  _ actually _ improved. Jack grunted a gruff greeting without looking up from his phone. 

 

“Good to see ya too, Jack.” McCree responded. Jack peered over his phone at him. 

 

“You look like shit. Take care of yourself better,” he huffed, going back to reading. 

 

McCree bristled, feeling defensive. Wrong table. He leaned back and crossed his arms, trying to decide if that even warranted a response. He didn’t have to think on it long before Lena came bounding in from the tiny kitchen. She was probably the only one that could fit in there comfortably with another person, so she often grabbed everyone’s plates. She had two trays of potatoes, sausage, and scrambled eggs. She plopped one down in front of McCree. “Eat up, cowboy!”

 

“I ain’t hungry.” He turned his nose up, even though it looked appetizing, preferring to just drink his coffee.Lena had sat across from him, next to Jack. She pointed a fork at him.

 

“Don’t be like that! You can’t live off of beer and coffee, Jesse. Don’t pretend like we both don’t know what’s been going on this week. Scowling all day and acting macho won’t hide the truth from me, y’know.” She started eating, watching him pointedly. 

 

Jack grunted again from behind his phone. “Don’t worry, kid, she’s just watchin’ out for you. Don’t blame you, this hasn’t been easy on me either,” he sighed, taking another sip of coffee. 

 

McCree grumbled, feeling like a child, but decided to appease his friends by obnoxiously chewing with his mouth open and slurping coffee as loudly as he could manage, earning him a few looks from the room. He was pleased to get a giggle out of Lena. the food was pretty good, he didn’t have to force himself to eat for very long. “Who’s the new guy?” He asked discreetly around a mouthful of potatoes. He nodded toward the man sitting at Genji’s table. 

 

Lena lowered her voice. “That’s Hanzo Shimada, ex-Yakuza and Genji’s brother. The omnic is Tekhartha Zenyatta, a Shambali Monk. They both came back with Genji a couple days ago.” She whispered. “Having Hanzo here, is,” she paused, searching for the right adjective, “unanticipated. To say the least. Not the friendliest.” 

 

“I’ll be damned.” McCree muttered. Knowing Genji when he was in Blackwatch was going to make getting to know his brother difficult, all things considered. Genji had a dark sense of humor back then, was a real angry kid.  _ Weren’t we all _ , he thought to himself. He wondered what was going through Hanzo’s head to show his face over here after what he’d done to their friend.

 

“ _ Genji _ was the one that brought him here,” Jack hinted. “Figure it’s their business. We’ve no right to give him a hard time if Genji isn’t.” 

 

Lena looked thoughtful, but Mccree was having none of it. “Like hell. Dunno ‘about y’all, but I ain’t gonna be soft on someone who sliced and diced his own brother. I won't outright give ‘im shit, but I ain’t gonna like ‘im.” 

 

Jack shrugged. “It ain’t my business. Do what you want with that.” 

 

McCree scowled. “Fuck that guy.” He finished off his coffee and stood up. “Thanks for, uh, checkin’ on me an’ stuff, Lena. I sure appreciate it. Prolly wouldn’t’ve eaten without ya.”

 

“Just take care of yourself, Jesse.” She frowned. “I know how bad everything was. It’s gonna be different this time, I can feel it.” She beamed up at him, “Overwatch is back!” She held up a hand for a high-five, which McCree returned with a grin. He threw her a one-finger salute before making another coffee and taking it back to his quarters. He sighed when he remembered the broken beer bottle. He sat his coffee down on a side-table and found a piece of paper, then carefully scooped the glass onto it with his hand, and picked up the larger chunks to throw it all away in a wastebasket. He internally reprimanded himself for breaking things in anger. He was better than that. 

 

With a sigh he fell back onto his bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking back on Lena’s words. 

 

_ “It’s gonna be different this time, I can feel it.” _

 

_ Oh boy. _ This whole thing was going to be a jumbled mess, he just had a feeling.   
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I really want to update this soon. I work a lot and I'm a slow writer so it might take a bit, but I'm practicing character interactions with this and working on exploring the characters in my own sort of interpretation of them. I haven't yet decided if I'm going to keep it in McCree's POV, or if I'm going to do different chapters for multiple characters. We shall see! I hope y'all enjoy this short chapter, I'll be back!


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